Memorable World History/Authors

Funny Girl: Fanny Brice

Fania Borach (October 29, 1891 – May 29, 1951), known professionally as Fanny Brice or Fannie Brice, was an American illustrated song model, comedienne, singer, theater, and film actress who made many stage, radio, and film appearances. She is known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series The Baby Snooks Show. Thirteen years after her death, Brice was portrayed on the Broadway stage by Barbra Streisand in the 1964 musical Funny Girl; Streisand also starred in its 1968 film adaptation, for which she won an Oscar, and in the 1975 sequel, Funny Lady.

Early life

Fania Borach was born in Manhattan, New York City, the third child of Rose (née Stern 1867-1941), a Hungarian-Jewish woman who emigrated to America at age ten, and Alsatian immigrant Charles Borach. The Borachs were saloon owners and had four children: Phillip, born in 1887; Carrie, born in 1889; Fania, born in 1891; and Louis, born in 1893. Under the name Lew Brice, her younger brother also became an entertainer and was the first husband of actress Mae Clarke. In 1908, Brice dropped out of school to work in a burlesque revue, "The Girls from Happy Land Starring Sliding Billy Watson". Two years later she began her association with Florenz Ziegfeld, headlining his Ziegfeld Follies in 1910 and 1911. She was hired again in 1921 and performed in the Follies into the 1930s. In the 1921 Follies, she was featured singing "My Man", which became both a big hit and her signature song. She made a popular recording of it for the Victor Talking Machine Company. The second song most associated with Brice is "Second Hand Rose", which she also introduced in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1921.

She recorded nearly two dozen record sides for Victor and also cut several for Columbia Records. She is a posthumous recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for her 1921 recording of "My Man".

Brice's Broadway credits include Fioretta, Sweet and Low, and Billy Rose's Crazy Quilt. Her films include My Man (1928), Be Yourself! (1930) and Everybody Sing (1938) with Judy Garland. According to film historian Richard Barrios, My Man is a lost film. Brice, Ann Pennington, Ray Bolger and Harriet Hoctor were the only original Ziegfeld performers to portray themselves in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Ziegfeld Follies (1946).

Radio

Brice's first radio show was the Philco Hour in February 1930. Brice's first regular radio show was probably The Chase and Sanborn Hour, a thirty-minute program which ran on Wednesday nights at 8 pm in 1933.

From the 1930s until her death in 1951, Fanny made a radio presence as a bratty toddler named Snooks, a role she premiered in a Follies skit co-written by playwright Moss Hart. Baby Snooks premiered in The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air in February 1936 on CBS, with Alan Reed playing Lancelot Higgins, her beleaguered "Daddy". Brice moved to NBC in December 1937, performing the Snooks routines as part of the Good News show, then back to CBS on Maxwell House Coffee Time, with the half-hour divided between the Snooks sketches and actor Frank Morgan.

In September 1944, Brice's longtime Snooks sketch writers, Philip Rapp and David Freedman, brought in partners, Arthur Stander and Everett Freeman, to develop an independent, half-hour comedy program. The program launched on CBS in 1944, moving to NBC in 1948, with Freeman producing. First called Post Toasties Time (named for the show's first sponsor), the show was renamed The Baby Snooks Show within short order, though in later years it was often known colloquially as Baby Snooks and Daddy. On the spinoff version of Baby Snooks, Hanley Stafford played Daddy, with Reed instead appearing as Daddy's employer, Mr. Weemish. Stafford eventually became the longest-running actor to portray the "Daddy" character.

Brice was so meticulous about the program and the title character that she was known to perform in costume as a toddler girl even though seen only by the radio studio audience. She was 45 years old when the character began her long radio life. In addition to Reed and Stafford, her co-stars included Lalive Brownell, Lois Corbet and Arlene Harris playing her mother, Danny Thomas as Jerry, Charlie Cantor as Uncle Louie, and Ken Christy as Mr. Weemish. She was completely devoted to the character, as she told biographer Norman Katkov: "Snooks is just the kid I used to be. She's my kind of youngster, the type I like. She has imagination. She's eager. She's alive. With all her deviltry, she is still a good kid, never vicious or mean. I love Snooks, and when I play her I do it as seriously as if she were real. I am Snooks. For 20 minutes or so, Fanny Brice ceases to exist."